CIA Refuses to Acknowledge Drone Targeted Killings

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CIA Refuses to Acknowledge Drone Targeted Killings

Armed MQ-9 Reaper drones like this one are used by both the U.S. military and the CIA.

Photo: USAF

Months after a federal appeals court reinstated a lawsuit seeking Central Intelligence Agency documents outlining the government's drone targeted killing program, the President Barack Obama administration is again claiming that acknowledging if it has such paperwork could disclose classified secrets concerning whether it even carries out targeted killings.

The legal flap concerns a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit (.pdf) brought by the American Civil Liberties Union in which the CIA has been refusing to confirm or deny the covert military use of drones to kill suspected terrorists overseas, despite Obama's and even a former CIA director's admission of the government's targeted killing program.

The use of drones to shoot missiles from afar at vehicles and buildings that the nation's intelligence agencies believe are being used by suspected terrorists began under the Bush administration and was widened by Obama to allow the targeting of American citizens. Drone strikes by the U.S. have sparked backlashes from foreign governments and populations, as the strikes often kill civilians, including women and children.

The CIA is sticking with a so-called "Glomar" response, refusing to confirm or deny the existence of responsive records because doing so would expose national security secrets.

The FOIA litigation dates to 2010, when the ACLU sued in federal court seeking records concerning the legal basis for carrying out targeted drone killings; any restrictions on those who may be targeted; any civilian casualties; any geographic limits on the program; the number of targeted killings that the agency has carried out; and the training, supervision, oversight, or discipline of drone operators.

But the Obama administration is now claiming that the government does not have to fork over any responsive documents in the ACLU's lawsuit because, in the end, the CIA has never "officially" said it has been involved, so the CIA can maintain its Glomar response.

"Further, none of the statements cited thus far by Plaintiffs constitute official acknowledgement of CIA's alleged role in drone strikes," Amy Powell, a Justice Department trial attorney, wrote (.pdf) the federal judge overseeing the lawsuit.

The ACLU has estimated that U.S. drone strikes have killed some 4,000 people across the globe.

"Three years after we filed our FOIA request for basic records about the targeted killing program, and even after the D.C. Circuit issued a unanimous decision holding that the CIA's claim of categorical secrecy was illegitimate, the CIA has yet even to identify any documents responsive to our request, let alone describe them, enumerate them, or explain why they're being withheld," said Jameel Jaffer, the ACLU's deputy legal director.

In 2011, Obama acknowledged particular drone strikes at a Joint Chiefs of Staff ceremony. Within hours of a drone strike that killed U.S. citizens Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan in Yemen, the president publicly lauded the move as "another significant milestone in the broader effort to defeat al-Qaeda and its affiliates" and then acknowledged the U.S. government's role, stating that "this success is a tribute to our intelligence community."